Today, more exploring and a fantastic swim in the morning. The water here is incredible. I've lived near the beach in Northern California, and the water was so cold that nobody ever went swimming without a wetsuit. It really puts a damper on Summer fun. That's not the case in the Mexican Riviera. The ocean was warm, warm, warm! We hopped in every day without a single gasp.

This is how close we were to the beach from Hotel Cielo. Less than two blocks away. I saw lots of "For Rent" signs right along the water, which was a constant temptation for us. We wanted to just call them up and stay for good!

Can you imagine swimming every morning in the beautiful water of the Riviera Maya? You can?

Yeah, that's what we want, too.

Roadside Stands and Pitaya

We took a road trip after our morning swim, and found an exotic fruit, different from anything that I've seen. This one is called Pitaya in Mexico, and it's more commonly referred to as the dragon fruit. I had to look it up because I'd never seen anything quite like this in the stores back home. This one was called "White Pitaya" because it has snow-white flesh with tons of tiny black seeds inside. We bought a huge bag of them for 20 pesos (about 1.50 USD) and started to eat them in the car. Delicious! There's roadside stands like this selling fresh fruit and vegetables all over the place in Playa Del Carmen and the outskirts of Tulum. You'll see them all along the highway. It pays to stop, because the fruit is the freshest you can buy (often picked the same morning) and the prices are cheap. Plus you are helping the locals, which is always nice.